


Church of the Wild

by thelongcon (rainer76)



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Bossy Daryl, M/M, Possessive Rick, Smut, questionable bedrooms, shameless sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 03:52:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2493389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainer76/pseuds/thelongcon





	Church of the Wild

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ampkiss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ampkiss/gifts).



 

**

 

Daryl was seven the first time he hears the word faggot.

 

**

 

He was fourteen when Merle catches him.  He didn’t ask for; it wasn’t even _wanted_.  The trucker was built like a brick barn, smelt like ale, wouldn’t back off. He left bruises on Daryl’s jaw from forcing his mouth wide open; the man’s tongue was too wide, wet, too forceful. Daryl remembers biting down hard, panicked, the taste of blood flooding his mouth.  He remembers the explosion of pain, the way his ears rang when the man cuffed him over the side of the head almost desultory, and how he slammed a thigh between Daryl’s legs in punishment.

It was the first time he was ever kneed in the balls, muscle striking upward from below.   The pain was outside of any experience Daryl had, clawing through his gut, doubling him over.  He had the mental image of melons being dropped from a height, the impact shattering them, and almost puked on the man’s shoes.  Wished he had, in hindsight.

“Hey!” Merle had snarled from the head of the alleyway.  “Hey!  You  _asshole!_ ”

Daryl doesn’t remember a whole lot after that, just the overwhelming sense of relief.  He knows Merle beat that man to near death.  His brother was ten years older than Daryl, lean muscle combined with a vicious temper, but he was still smaller than the trucker. He painted the alley with the man’s blood, shattered his ribcage under steel-capped boots.  Merle had hauled him away, one hand fisted in Daryl’s collar and said over and over again.  “What the hell were you thinking?!  Huh?!  Or were you thinking at all you dumb piece of shit?!”  It would take a while to untangle the insults from the outright  _fear_  in Merle’s voice, to distinguish the concern; mostly, Daryl’s head was fuzzy, his stomach roiling with nausea, and his eye was swelling fast.  “Were you asking for it?” Merle had finished; his tone gone wild.  “Were you _asking_ for it, baby brother?”

Danvers knew their old man.  Daryl had the habit of doing his homework at the end of the bar after school, killed a few hours before heading home.  The pub drew the truckers headed north on the interstate, drew some of the more rowdy locals, and it drew Bear Graham, the senior quarterback at school.  Daryl doesn’t remember seeing the trucker with the tree-trunk thighs, he didn’t even know he was being watched until Daryl went to take a leak in the alley and found a human mountain blocking his exit.  Were you asking for it, Merle snarled accusingly, and Daryl could remember the hot flush of confusion and shame.  He doesn’t remember asking for a damn thing but he remembers the slope of Graham’s shoulder, the line of his neck when he chugged on his beer bottle, fake I.D accepted because Danvers never gave a shit when the law got in the way of a good profit margin.  He remembers the stillness of his own body, the laser-like focus of being on a hunt, of everything else falling by the wayside as he traced the line of Graham’s body, felt the low curl of…speculation….unfurl inside his own chest.  Captivated ain’t the right word – it ain’t Daryl, how he defines himself, how he prefers to be seen - but inside the pub Daryl had been focused on Graham to the exclusion of everybody else.  

Including the trucker.

“No.”  Daryl choked out - because he thought one had nothing to do with the other - but when he caught sight of the  _sneer_  on Merle’s face he bit off harshly.  “Fuck off.”

“Fuck off?” Merle repeated, his mouth gone mean.  “Trust me, little brother, there would have been a whole lot of that if I hadn’t saved your skinny ass.  Quit turning their heads like a prissy queer.”

Daryl landed a hit to Merle’s crooked nose, tackled him to the dirt, scrambling on top, shaking with rage and the tail-end of terror.  He could still taste the trucker’s tongue in his mouth, and as a result, he took the second beating of the day when Merle gave no quarter.  “Fight,” he’d taunt.  “C’mon, boy, that all you got?  Watcha do when I ain’t around to protect you, pansy-ass?  Fight,  _fight me._ ”

Daryl’s never asked for it, not when he was fourteen.  He never acted on it; not when he was an adult.

 

**

 

He’s twenty-four when he muscles his way into a flop.  He finds Merle in the backroom, human bodies and detritus tangled together, the smell of reefers cloying the air, straight lines of cocaine laid out on the surface of a coffee table.  Oxy-con was Merle’s preferred choice and for a brief moment Daryl wondered where the rich twink was, because who else could afford this shit? He blew through two rooms and went out the back, only to stop in his tracks when a voice drawled out: “Hey, sugar.”

He’s Daryl’s age, sprawled shirtless on the couch, each ridge of his abdomen defined.  He had a curl of dark hair over his forehead, a body made for sin, and if Daryl had the time or inclination he would have broken every commandment on the spot.  He was beautiful to the point of unreality and Daryl gaped for a full ten seconds before declaring: “I’m here for me, brother. ”Then clarified, “Merle,” in case it wasn’t apparent.

“You’re related?” the rich kid said, then added softly.  “ _Damn_ , the genetics sure came down on your side of the fence.”  

Daryl’s twenty-four, not blind, and if people stare at him a little harder than they ought to then it’s because they’re worried about the surname or double-checking the location of their wallets.  Rich kid smiles, slow and wanton.  He stretches so his jeans ride low and it’s natural to follow the movement, to let Daryl’s eyes drop to the hollow of his hipbone.  “Merle’s out of it for a while.  Come here and keep me entertained.”  He makes an expansive gesture, taking in the girls slumbering on the opposite couch, the white powder freely laid out, and adds: “I’ll make it worth your while.”

The taste in the back of Daryl’s mouth turns sour at the casual assumption.  The expectation (privilege) is enough to set Daryl’s teeth of edge; eyes narrowed into slits.  “You trying to start something?” He asks, voice gone to venom.  “You think  _I_  want to start something?”  Merle’s unconscious in the backroom, high on who knows what, and Daryl can feel the thrum in his bones re-attune itself, the familiar note of anger curling his hands into fists.

Rich kid sees it, whatever violence is building in his chest.  He raises both hands mockingly.  “Gonna hit me for asking?” he says, out of left field, and raises his chin like he can already feel the punch land.

“Don’t recall you asking.”  Daryl mutters, his hands uncurl, fingers twitching as he looks away from all that displayed skin.  He shifts uneasily, until the knotted lash of emotion whips him onward.  Daryl steps around the kid, with all of his daddy’s riches laid out before him, to go find his brother instead.  He hauls Merle’s arm over his shoulder, body lax and unco-operative, and drags him toward the exit without sparing a glance at the couch.

 

 

**

He’s thirty-four and it doesn’t seem important.   Not anymore. He ain’t no virgin, let’s make it clear; it’s just…he doesn’t see what the fuss is about.

 

**

 

He’s forty-one the first time he considers it, when speculation cements into want, fans into desire, turns into something he can’t find the words to contain. 

Everything _important_ in this world is now hidden, squirreled away in bolt-holes, buried beneath layers – except everything important is now  _sought,_  hungered and searched for - and Rick touches like he’s something precious, explores the boundaries of his body with trembling fingertips.

In a vestry under a stained glass window, Daryl  _spreads_  for him. 

Two candles burn like eye-sockets in the darkness, the rug underneath him is rough against his spine. Rick traces the line of Daryl’s jaw with his eyes gone wide, with the taint of violence clinging to his skin.  It would be easy to let Rick take control.  It would be easy to let inexperience curtail his own actions except Daryl’s been wanting this since the prison fell, been speculating about it since he first met Rick Grimes, thought about it since he was a boy and was transfixed by the curl of long fingers against a bottle neck of beer, and he’s  _been_  still for as long as he cares to. He tangles a hand in Rick’s hair, pulls him down until their mouths touch, flush to one another, and breathes him in deep.

“I thought they took the _three_ of you,” Rick rasps out.  His fingers dig into Daryl’s biceps, hard enough to leave bruises.  He looks betrayed somehow, like he's been cut deep.

Daryl widens his thighs in response, let’s Rick settle more firmly into the cradle of his hips.  “I brought one back,” he answers - as if it were a numbers game, we lost Bob, gained Beth, and the other two (Carol and Daryl) were never lost from Rick to begin with - he never intended to sound flippant but he must because Rick growls in response, teeth coming down hard on Daryl’s bottom lip.  “’M sorry,” he amends, softly.  “It was about opportunity.” 

They never would have found Beth if they hadn’t followed right then. He didn’t have time to send Rick a message.

The hunters had an opportunity, too, snatched Bob when no one else was looking, and Rick had assumed the disappearance of all three was connected.  Rick dealt with that, when Daryl was dealing with another shit-storm, and he doesn’t know how to interpret those sharp spikes of anger and possessiveness in Rick’s eyes; he doesn’t know how to appease the shifting maelstrom of his focus; the knee that nudges against Daryl’s groin, or the way Rick marks him up, only to soothe the sting with the flat of his tongue.  His fingers always clenching, clawing, holding tight.

Daryl rocks, palms on Rick’s hips, skimming the worn denim over his ass and baring him. Rick’s skin turns holy rose under the stained window, the wood of the church creaks under their movements.  He tangles Rick’s thighs with the bunched up material of his own jeans, only to roll them both over, pinning Rick beneath him.  Rick’s eyes flash at the sudden change of position, his expression gone lean and predatory, it raises the hairs on Daryl’s arm.  He might be lacking experience but he wants to soothe the flayed edges, cover over the welts left behind by the hunters deeds, by his own thoughtless action.  I saved her, he wants to say.  I didn’t mean to worry you, he wishes to amend.  “You’re mine,” he says, instead, voice gravel rough, and stares Rick down until he blinks and blinks again.

His heart thumps rapidly.  He doesn’t know if Rick realises the import; he has his crossbow, boots, vest, other than that, Daryl can count on the fingers of one hand the number of things he’s ever bothered to want.  He never names them aloud; never gives them voice.  The stuff worth fighting for; the stuff you don’t give up.  “You’re _always_ gonna be mine,” he promises, because there’s not much worth staking a claim on but everything he wants is right here, under him and coiled tight.  Daryl’s face is dark, obscured by his hair, he sets his teeth close to Rick’s neck as he whispers:  “Think I won’t ever hunt you down?  Think I won’t find you?  Concussed and with an arrow in me side?  Or when you’re alone, hunkered down by the highway?  Think I won’t come for what’s  _mine,_  to plant an arrow to the skull on a prison-line fence?  Find you beside a campfire in the dark?”  Daryl grins, feral; he wraps a hand around the hard-line of Rick’s flesh, trails his thumb against the crown and sinks his full weight onto Rick’s thighs, pinning him there. 

“Think there’s anything you can do to me that I don’t  _want_?”  He confesses.  And he remembers earlier, Rick’s soft touch tripping into anger, how the man’s been dogging his heels since Daryl made it back with Beth and Carol in tow.  How everything feels stark and amplified between them.  He wants and he wants but Rick  _needs,_  and Daryl can be a bossy bottom - he can fit himself into those unnamed spaces, he can be whatever Rick needs at any time, any moment - and he needs this, this statement of intent, unequivocally.  It goes both ways, he’s trying to say.

In a holy church of the wild, Daryl overturns the anointment oil and lets his fingers turn slick.  He wonders if this is sacrilege or worship; if he could find the fierce temperance of Rick’s features on the windows of this building, cut in stained glass, or buried in the pages of a hidden book.  This is his harbour and his home.  This serenity is _his_.

Rick’s face goes slack with disbelief when Daryl reaches behind and fingers himself open, the angle wrong and his wrist hurting with the strain, the slow burn as one finger’s increased to two, readying himself.

Rick shudders from head to foot when Daryl raises himself, hovering over the top.  He says, near incoherent; with an edge of panic: “Don’t go.”  Not now.  Not then.  Maybe Rick means not ever. Doesn’t matter, Daryl can count his possessions on one hand, and he won’t give any of them up until his dying day. 

Daryl sits. 

He’s not kind, not to himself or to Rick.  It’s a flare of pain as the rim is stretched, too sudden.  It’s Rick biting his own lip bloody, a half aborted sob as he claws at the rug to hold his body still.   Outside, the voices of the others murmur like a background choir.  Daryl slides down the solid length of him, seeking out every point of contact, until he’s flush, knees banging into Rick’s rib-cage, body folding over into a crooked hook.  It aches bone deep, a strobe of conflict, a good/sore intrusion that he shakes and shudders through.  They stay like that for a long minute, breathing in tandem until they both adjust. 

Rick’s face is unguarded, shattered open.  He touches the sparse hairs on Daryl’s thighs, palms his stomach, brushes a fingertip across the puckered scar at his side, and whispers like a secret.  “You’re not leaving again.”

It’s Daryl who fucks him, the muscles of his thighs working as he rises and lowers his own body weight.  It’s Rick who sets the pace, hands on his hips, head thrown back in abandon, eyes dark.  Rick’s mouth curves into a smile at one point - the helpless stutter of Daryl’s body betraying him as Rick thrusts up on a downslide - and hits something buried deep inside.  Daryl folds over with a groan, all rhythm lost, and whimpers “J-jesus”

He could listen to that rough laugh all day.

 

Rick’s smile turns sweet when Daryl clutches at him, but paradoxically, his actions become hell-bent.  He finds the same spot _every fucking time_ and commits to it.   Daryl comes with his vision glimmering; body spent, his thighs wobbly with exertion.  He comes split open on Rick’s cock, possessed and _owned_ to his very soul, and says against Rick’s mouth.  “I ain’t letting you up.”  Because he knows he’s Rick’s - Daryl’s belonged to Rick since the moment they met - but he ain’t above letting the other man know it too.

He ain’t above staking his own claim, to settle that shivering anxiety in Rick’s touch into something calmer and more steadfast.  Daryl will sit on him all night if he needs to; he’ll pretend he knows exactly what he’s doing; he’ll be whatever Rick covets.

 




 


End file.
